NOTHING SINISTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 247, 18 October 1937, Page 7

NOTHING SINISTER

BRITISH RE-ARMING

‘KNOW HOW TO DEFEND OURSELVES’’ [ British Official Wirelees.] RUGBY, Oct. 15. The Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain), speaking at a banquet of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce at Manchester, dealt mainly with the Government s attitude to industry and appealed for closer co-operation between business organisations and the Government. Referring to the international situation, Mr Chamberlain said: “If we are striving—as we are night and day—to re-arm ourselves, it is not that we have sinister designs against anybody else. If we are attacked we should know how to defend ourselves, as we have always done in the past. But it is not in our temperament to bear malice, and I think we have the shortest memory for quarrels of any nation in the world. Sometimes we are credited with more than a Machiavellian degree of cunning but the simple fact is that the mainspring of our foreign policy is our desire to live in peace with our neighbours and to use our influence to induce them, if they should have any difficulties, to resolve them by peaceful discussions and not to resort to war.”